A New Order for the Gulf States |
Jared Kushner speaks with Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman in the Outer Oval Office, on November 18, 2025. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states may seek to develop strategic autonomy and leave dependence on US security. (The White House/Daniel Torok)
A New Order for the Gulf States
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The Gulf states no longer believe they have a choice other than develop strategic autonomy for their own defense.
When the Iran War commenced in late February, one of the key questions for the Gulf states was whether they could stay out of a regional war. Time and 40 days of airstrikes across six countries have demonstrated that they could not. Saudi Arabia and the UAE launched their own offensive operations against Iranian positions and allied militias. Neither government had done that in decades.
That step has permanently changed the terms on which either can claim neutrality going forward. What remains contested is what comes after: not whether the Gulf states should control their own security, but how, and whether the proposals now circulating in Western capitals would improve their position or describe a different form of the same problem.
One argument holds that Persian Gulf states should use the prospect of US military withdrawal to extract a deal from Iran—a phased departure from Al Udeid, the Fifth Fleet headquarters, and Al Dhafra in exchange for nuclear constraints, curbs on missiles and proxies, and a non-belligerence treaty. American forces have become as much a target as a deterrent, and the Gulf states have been shunned from the negotiations that will determine their security. If both points are true, the argument built on them is much less so.
Outside powers have always served their own interests in the Gulf. Britain ceded Kuwaiti territory in 1922 to the Saudis and withdrew from Yemen in 1967. Later, it stood aside as Iran seized three Emirati islands in 1971. Washington did not act to arrest the Iranian Revolution in 1979, did not respond to the Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil facilities in 2019, and in 2025 left Qatar exposed to Israeli strikes, despite the US military presence in the country. External guarantors have often failed to provide the Gulf states with durable security. Nonetheless, they are also the best available option. Giving up the one external........